This invention relates to furniture units which may be assembled from individual panels and, more particularly, to strong, rigid, furniture units which may be assembled from panels without bending or distortion of the panels and which contain no visible fasteners or fastener openings after assembly.
Many prior known furniture assemblies have utilized individual planar and panels of other configurations assembled together in edge-to-surface relationships to form three-dimensional furniture units. Such furniture includes conventional screws or nails passed through one panel and into another such that each panel is directly engaged and secured to other panels which it engages. For proper finishing, such constructions require careful covering and filing of nail and screw holes which are left after assembly.
In other furniture constructions such as those shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,451,362 issued June 24, 1969, to E. J. Ostling et al entitled FURNITURE CONSTRUCTION HAVING YIELDABLE RECESSED FASTENING MEANS and U.S. Pat. No. 3,634,983 issued Jan. 18, 1972, to P. C. Welch entitled BOOTH CONSTRUCTION, which are commonly assigned to the owner of this application, specialized, vandal-proof assemblies such as for public telephone booths have been used wherein the various furniture panels are connected by recessed, slotted clips and headed screws received in such clips. Typically, the slotted clips are received in recesses in edge surfaces of one of the panels while the headed screw is received on the surface to be connected to the edge surface opposite to the slotted clip. In order to assemble three mutually perpendicular furniture panels in such prior constructions when utilizing the slotted clips and screws, it was found necessary to provide an opening or "window" from the recess in which the slotted clip was mounted outwardly through a surface adjacent the recess other than the surface in which the recess was made. This provided recess openings to two surfaces through which a screw head could be inserted and allowed assembly of various perpendicular panels by insertion of the screw heads through the "windows" into the recess containing the slotted clip even though some of the panels being connected were secured in a rigidly spaced relationship. In addition, it was sometimes necessary, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,451,362, to bend outwardly and distort certain of the panels to insert the screw heads and their appropriate recesses for engagement with the slotted clips therein. This made disassembly difficult which was a desirable antivandalism feature of those specialized constructions.
For more conventional applications not requiring protection against vandalism, it became desirable to assemble a strong, rigid furniture unit having concealed fasteners and panels in three mutually perpendicular planes which were secured by slidingly engageable, recessed slotted clips. A furniture assembly and method was desired which did not require "windows" or openings into the recesses for assembly, did not require bending or distortion of the panels for assembly or disassembly, and contained no visible fasteners or fastener openings after assembly.